Gazette 070814

Tuesday July 8th 2014

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Israel 'ready for Gaza escalation'

At least 12 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say, as the Israeli military prepares "all options" to stop rocket fire.

Six people died in an air strike on a house in Khan Younis, while four were killed when a car was hit in Gaza City.
The Israeli military said 131 rockets had been fired from Gaza since Monday night, and that it had targeted some 150 "terror sites" in response.
Israel has provisionally authorised the call-up of 40,000 military reservists.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said all Israelis were now targets.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Israel immediately stop the raids on Gaza and appealed for calm.
'War crime' The Israeli military said aircraft and naval vessels had targeted militant compounds, rocket launchers and other infrastructure in Gaza, which is dominated by Hamas and until recently was governed by it.

Iron Dome intercepts rocket over Tel Aviv 

The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted a projectile over Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening. No injuries or damage were reported.
The Code Red siren sounded in all of Gush Dan, including the central Israeli cities of Petah Tikva, Lod and Givatayim.
It was the first Gaza rocket that reached Tel Aviv since Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Tel Aviv Municipality was instructed to inspect and open public bomb shelters in the city in order to "provide an optimal response for residents if necessary" in the event that escalations in the South reach the Center.
The Home Front Command also instructed Tel Aviv residents to prepare for utilizing protected rooms and shelters in their private homes.
Under the same instruction, the division responsible for civil security ordered for bomb shelters in Tel Aviv schools to be opened.
The IDF launched Operation Protective Edge in the early hours of Tuesday morning in order to quell the ongoing barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
Since midnight Tuesday, more than 30 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have exploded in Israel.
Terrorists in Gaza have launched more than 250 projectiles at Israel in recent weeks.

Saudi Arabia says local al-Qaida members carried out deadly Yemen border assault

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia –  Saudi Arabia says Saudi nationals who are members of al-Qaida were behind the attack on a Yemeni border post that killed five soldiers and left five militants dead.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki says in a statement that an investigation revealed at least six men who are on a wanted list carried out the Friday attack. One was arrested, he says, while five remain at large.

The violence erupted when a suicide car bomber struck the Yemeni side of the border post in the al-Wadia area, killing one Yemeni soldier. The militants then fled in two cars toward Saudi Arabia and opened fire on soldiers, killing four Saudi border guards.

Islamic State Militants Round Up Potential Rivals In Iraq's Mosul

BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq, July 8 (Reuters) - One night last week, Islamic State militants in an SUV with tinted windows pulled up at the home of a former Iraqi army officer, one of the men they see as an obstacle to their goal of establishing a caliphate from Iraq to the Mediterranean.

As the retired major-general was led away to the vehicle draped in the trademark black and white Islamist flag, his son and wife feared the worst.

"I have been asking the families of other officers and no one knows why they were taken," his son said by phone, breaking down in tears.

In the past week, Sunni militants who overran the city of Mosul last month have rounded up between 25 and 60 senior ex-military officers and members of former dictator Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party, residents and relatives say.

The crackdown potentially signals a rift in the Sunni alliance that helped secure Islamic State fighters swift victory when they rode in from the desert to capture Mosul last month.

The northern city of around 2 million people is by far the largest to fall to the group now known as the Islamic State and a central part of its plans for an Islamist caliphate.

When the group, then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, seized large swathes of Iraq at lightning speed last month, it was supported by other Sunni Muslim armed groups.

Tribes and former loyalists of Saddam's Baath party were eager to hit back at Iraq's Shi'ite leaders, even if they did not share ISIL's vision of a caliphate ruled on medieval Islamic precepts. But now, leaders of those groups are being ordered to swear allegiance to the new caliphate.

"I think (the Islamic State) wants to give the message that they are the only group in the land, that people must follow them or give up their weapons," said provincial governor Atheel Nujaifi, who is in touch with residents by phone after having fled to the Kurdish-controlled city of Arbil as Mosul fell.

Iran needs more nuclear enrichment capacity - Khamenei

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Iran could eventually need tens of thousands of centrifuges for its nuclear programme.

He said that world powers were trying to limit the number to 10,000.
But Ayatollah Khamenei said that within five years Iran would need far more centrifuges than that to increase output.
Nuclear negotiations are continuing between Iran and the P5+1 group, with a deadline of 20 July for an agreement.
The deadline could be extended if an agreement is not made in time.
World powers suspect Iran is seeking nuclear weapons - a charge Iran strongly denies. Iran insists it is enriching uranium to fuel power plants and for medical needs, and wants international sanctions to end.
Last month French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that Iran must restrict its number of centrifuges to just a few hundred.
Negotiators from the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany (P5+1) in Vienna want Iran to scale back enrichment to ensure the uranium cannot be used in weapons.
In his comments Ayatollah Khamenei also expressed strong support for Iran's negotiating team in Vienna, a boost to moderate President Rouhani, who has been accused by hardliners of giving to much ground on the nuclear issue.

Afghanistan Suicide Attack Near Clinic Claims At Least 16 Lives, Including 4 Foreign Troops

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah defiantly told thousands of supporters Monday that he will declare victory as he claimed massive fraud was responsible for preliminary results putting his rival in the lead. The United States, meanwhile, warned both camps against trying to seize power, saying international financial and security support was at stake.
The turmoil came as violence escalated around the country. A suicide bomber struck Afghan and foreign forces near a clinic in the eastern province of Parwan, killing at least 16 people, including four Czech soldiers.
Abdullah said he received calls from President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and he was told that Kerry would be flying to the Afghan capital on Friday in a bid to help defuse the crisis. State Department officials accompanying Kerry in Beijing declined to comment on his travel plans.
Abdullah told his supporters that the results of the election were fraudulent, but asked them to give him a few more days to negotiate.
"We denounce and do not accept the results of the fraudulent vote. I assure you people of Afghanistan that I will sacrifice for you, but I will never accept a fraudulent government," he told his supporters, many angry over the result. "We announce that only the government elected through clean votes will come to power."
The Afghan Independent Election Commission released preliminary election results Monday showing former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai well in the lead for the presidency but said no winner could be declared because millions of ballots were being audited for fraud.
Preliminary results from the June 14 runoff vote announced Monday showed that Ahmadzai had about 4.5 million votes, or 56 percent, while Abdullah had 3.5 million votes, or 44 percent, according to the commission. Turnout was more than 50 percent.
Related:  US threatens to drop support as Afghanistan election dispute deepens

Ukraine says no more unilateral ceasefires

Ukraine will only negotiate with the rebels once they lay down their arms, Kiev's defence minister has said.

"There will be no more unilateral ceasefires" by Ukrainian troops, Valeriy Heletey said in a statement posted on the ministry's website.
He was speaking after separatists fled their eastern strongholds and regrouped in the regional centre of Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces recaptured several cities after President Petro Poroshenko brought an end to a 10-day ceasefire.
He has since ordered the army to blockade the insurgents inside the two cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. On Tuesday he named a new head of the military operation, Vasyl Grytsak.
Mr Poroshenko had promised ceasefire talks no later than last Saturday, but that was before the series of recent military successes.
The latest ceasefire expired at the end of June and failed to lead to any negotiated settlement.
Separatists regroup One of the rebel leaders in the east, Alexander Borodai, told Russian media they were preparing to fight back. "We're not preparing ourselves for a siege. We are preparing ourselves for action," he said.

British woman on trial, charged with trying to smuggle terrorism funds in her underwear

LONDON –  A British woman accused of trying to smuggle 20,000 euros ($27,200) in her underwear to militants fighting in Syria has gone on trial in London's Old Bailey court.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that 26-year-old Nawal Msaad from north London had agreed to be a courier for her friend and co-defendant, Amal el-Wahabi, 27.

Prosecutors say el-Wahabi's husband, who is believed to be fighting in Syria, wanted the money to be taken to Turkey to support the jihadist fighters.
Prosecutors claim the money was raised in Britain, and that the two women had reason to suspect it was to be used for terrorism.
Police arrested Msaad at London's Heathrow Airport in January as she was preparing to board a flight to Turkey.
El-Wahabi was arrested the same day.

Russia hits out at 'kidnapping' of MP's son by US secret service

Roman Seleznev, son of politician known for anti-American outbursts, arrested in Maldives on suspicion of hacking activities

Russian authorities have reacted with anger over the "kidnapping" of the son of a Russian MP, apparently detained by US agents in the Maldives, on suspicion of hacking computer systems in order to steal the credit card details of thousands of Americans.
The US department of homeland security announced on Monday that the secret service had arrested Roman Seleznev on suspicion of hacking activities carried out between 2009 and 2011. He is the son of Valery Seleznev, an MP from the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic arty, whose leader has frequently made anti-American outbursts.
Russia's foreign ministry said that Seleznev was seized by US officials as he attempted to board a plane in the Maldives, and was instead forcefully transferred to another plane, from where he was flown to the US Pacific island of Guam.
Initially, Valery Seleznev said he was certain that the man arrested could not be his relative, as his son did not have any knowledge of computers and did not even have a US visa. Later, it became apparent that the arrest did not take place on US soil, and Russian agencies reported that the MP confirmed it was indeed his son involved. He said he had not been able to speak to his son, but maintained that the allegations were false.
"This is a monstrous lie and a provocative act," he said.
The Russian foreign ministry condemned the arrest as "the latest unfriendly move from Washington", and criticised the Maldives for ignoring a bilateral treaty and allowing a Russian citizen to be extradited with no due procedure.

Pakistan operation displaces half-a-million people

BANNU(Pakistan): Pakistan military's operation to dismantle terrorist safe havens in North Waziristan has displaced around half-a-million people from their homes in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

An estimated 70% of them are women and children, whose future depends on the operation's success. The operation would decide whether the displaced people, who include 86 Hindu and Christian families, would return from their camps in Bannu town to their homes.

The displaced Hindus and Christians have taken shelter in two missionary schools in the town—Janbaz Catholic Missionary School and Pannell Missionary High School.

Hindus and Christians left behind are residing inside a colonial era fort under paramilitary Frontier Constabulary's control in Miramshah town.

Christian community leader Pervez Iqbal Masih said they were asked to leave for safer places like the rest of the tribal population ahead of the operation.

"We were informed through pamphlets and announcements on loudspeakers by local Taliban-led by Hafiz Gul Bahdur to vacate the region by June 10 as the military has planned the operation.''

Emanuel Basharat, another Christian, said he began his journey to Bannu along with his ailing wife and three children on a motorbike.

"The condition of my wife, Sarah Bhatti, suffering from diabetes and heart problem, started deteriorating. We made her sit on the bike and walked with it for 12km," he said. When they reached Edik town, a truck driver offered them lift till Bannu.

Hindu refugee Zahid Chand said they have lived in the region for generations and hope to return to their homes soon.
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Obama requests $3.7bn to fix border crisis

President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $3.7bn (£2.2bn) in extra funding to tackle an immigration crisis at the southern border.

More than 50,000 unaccompanied children - most from Central America - have been caught trying to cross illegally between October and 15 June.
The move comes amid Congressional gridlock over a wide-reaching bill to overhaul the immigration system.
Mr Obama is set to meet local leaders in Texas over the issue on Wednesday.
But he has been criticised by members of both parties about not visiting the border personally during a primarily political fundraising trip to the southern state, which shares a lengthy border with Mexico.
The emergency funding would include money for the hiring of 40 extra immigration judge teams, drone surveillance of the border, medical services and transportation costs, expanding a border security task force in Central America and overtime for border patrol workers.

Obama getting cold shoulder in Colorado

If President Obama is as thin-skinned as his critics say then his ego is in for a bruising in Colorado today. Obama will be campaigning in the Centennial State – one of the key battlegrounds in his bid to hold the Senate for his party – but neither the incumbent senator he is trying to save nor other top-tier Democratic candidates will appear in public with the president. Adding insult to injury, embattled incumbent Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., will appear in private with Obama tomorrow for the president to tap his extensive donor network in the state. Udall’s team cited scheduling problems that would keep the senator, locked in a toss-up race with challenger Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., from appearing at a daytime campaign event where there will be reporters present. But Udall’s schedule will clear up just in time for the senator to arrive at a closed-door donor event in Denver. Even more galling: Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, facing a tough re-election test, and Andrew Romanoff, the former state House speaker now running for a seat in Congress, will both be no shows for Obama. Candidates ditching unpopular incumbents in public is nothing new, but the Colorado case is telling for Obama and his party this cycle.

[The Denver Post reports today that the drop-out rate for the state’s ObamaCare program is now forecast to be twice as bad as first projected.]

Peaks and valleys - Obama’s jaw-dropping 2008 convention, complete with Greek pillars, was held in Denver and Hickenlooper, then mayor, was the host. Obama went on to roll through the previously reddish state by a stout 9-point margin. Democrats cruised in Colorado in 2010 and the president didn’t have to break a sweat to win the state again in 2012, though his margin shrank to 5 points. Obama championed Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s rise in the party, choosing him in a contentious 2010 primary and helping Bennet rise to be the current chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Colorado was the centerpiece of an Obama “Western strategy” to permanent Democratic majorities. Now? The president’s job approval rating in the state was at 38 percent in the last reliable public poll taken in the state. Udall, who rode Obama’s coattails in 2008, is looking like an increasingly bad bet for re-election. The president’s energy policies and overall economic concerns rank high on the list of voter concerns, but ObamaCare remains a toxic substance in the state. Colorado embraced the health law but has struggled badly with implementation. Like Iowa to the east, Colorado’s retreat from Obama and the Democrats who carry his banner has revealed the hollowness of Obama’s onetime boats of being a transformational political figure for his party.

Sarah Palin Calls For Obama's Impeachment

Sarah Palin is now calling for President Barack Obama's impeachment.
In a column published on Breitbart.com Tuesday, Palin accused the president of "purposeful dereliction of duty," likening the Obama's treatment of the United States to that of an abusive spouse.
"Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president," Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, wrote. "His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, 'no mas.'"
Palin suggested that the president has deliberately left the U.S.-Mexico border unsecured, echoing a similar theory floated by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) earlier this week.
"Without borders, there is no nation," Palin wrote. "Obama knows this. Opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants is deliberate. This is his fundamental transformation of America. It’s the only promise he has kept."
On Tuesday, Obama requested $3.7 billion from Congress to address the situation at the border. The funds would help improve security at the border in addition to providing care for the children who have come into the Department of Health and Human Services' custody.
Palin, who last year suggested that Obama could be impeached over the debt limit, argued in the Tuesday column that Obama's "rewarding of lawlessness" had caused "irreparable harm."
"It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment," Palin wrote. "The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is."

Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees are a drop in the Clinton Foundation’s massive fundraising bucket

When The Post first reported that Hillary Clinton had earned more than $1 million in speaking fees from appearances at various universities — including public ones — the soon-to-be-2016 candidate's defense was that the money "goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation." The recipient foundation? The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. And if those fees were less than $5 million, which seems likely, this would position Hillary as, at most, the 31st-biggest donor to the huge, sweeping institution that bears her name.
Between 2002 and 2012, the Clinton Foundation (which was at first named only after the former president) raised $1.1 billion in donations and other income streams. As of its most recent publicly available filing with the IRS, required for nonprofits, the foundation had net assets exceeding $180 million. The foundation plays a lot of roles: running the Clinton Presidential Center (his library) in Little Rock, hosting the Clinton Global Initiative, and running various initiatives focused on global health and the climate.

Obama invites Perry to meeting on border crisis

Washington (CNN) - The political sparring over the border crisis intensified Tuesday as the White House released a letter accepting Texas Gov. Rick Perry's invitation to President Barack Obama for a meeting on the issue during his trip to Texas Wednesday.

The letter from White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett was in response to Perry's letter to the President, released Monday evening, that turned down an offer to greet Obama on the tarmac when he arrives in Austin, with the suggestion of a more “substantive meeting to discuss this critical issue.”
Obama "asked me to invite you to join him for a meeting to discuss the situation on the border with faith leaders and local elected officials in Dallas on Wednesday,” Jarrett wrote in the letter.
According to a senior administration official, White House officials were in touch with aides to the Texas Governor late Monday in an effort to set up the meeting between the two leaders. Perry's aides have yet to respond, the official said.
The same official said Obama had previously scheduled his own meeting with faith leaders and local elected officials in Dallas on Wednesday to discuss their plans to convert local schools into temporary housing facilities for some of the unaccompanied minors and other undocumented immigrants who have arrived at the U.S. southwestern border in recent months.
In Jarrett's letter, she also asked Perry for his help in convincing Republicans in Congress to approve the President's request for more than $2 billion in federal funds to add new border patrol agents and immigration judges in the Southwestern region, as well as expanded facilities to hold detained migrants. The president has also asked for expanded legal authority for the Department of Homeland Security to expedite the process of returning the children to their countries of origin.
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